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If by equal pay you mean people get paid the same for hard physical labor and staying at home and jerking off, than yes, I imagine it would. Imaging hypothetically that everyone could work on art or science projects, read novels, and watch TV all day, nobody would be a janitor or a restaurant manager. That is in fact one version of the communist ideal: most mindless tasks have been fully automated (because people do not enjoy doing them and will not if they receive no reward for doing so) and everyone can work on whatever projects they find personally satisfying without thinking about the market for it.

If by equal pay you mean, everyone gets paid equally for being equally productive, which is of course not the case now, than I imagine this would motivate people to work harder or at least as hard as they do now. It would be difficult to fairly assign credit to the productivity of managers and workers, but I am confident on average people could do a better job than the market.

If by equal pay you mean the same hourly wage, then I am as curious as you are. I think most creative tasks are their own reward, so I doubt an absolutely equal hourly wage would be the end of Silicon Valley. People enter many training intensive professions, such as in the medical and scientific fields, because of a real passion for the subject; the abstract goal of eventually getting rich is not enough for most people. That their hard work is eventually rewarded is an added bonus, not their motivation. This has been true of basically every scientist or artist I have talked to (at least as far as they'll admit!). Many menial, labor intensive jobs are already minimum wage, so I suppose that people in them would work just as hard (as long as they could still be fired).

However, there are certainly sectors that would suffer. I doubt most people in management or with certain desk jobs would work as hard. There would be no motivation to increase efficiency or expand if you could make as much money and spend more time with your family. That may seem like a good thing (there would also be no desire to commit immoral business practices), but it would be very unproductive long term. There are many jobs that are necessary without being rewarding or meaningful. If you could get equal pay slacking at such jobs, you would (I have). Now, traditional, tightly structured communities can goad people into high levels of performance without a monetary reward (Sparta might be a good example). However, they can only do so with tremendous social pressure, which is as stressful as the struggle for material goods past a subsistence level. So the cultural solution is really no solution at all. It can force people to work "selflessly" for the good of the community, but cannot generally make a task satisfying.

in such a community where there is equal pay, why wouldnt the boring shitty jobs get rotated? Also you've answered your own question to a degree by saying these are the kinds of jobs that we work on to reduce time spent on them or render redundant.

One problem is that highly trained specialists would be wasted doing shitty jobs. For example, if you have a surgeon cleaning toilets one day of the week in a hospital, that's one day per week he's not operating.

Obviously there would be exceptions, such as if your job involves saving lives, that is an understandable situation where collectively society would say, "yeah, that person doesn't have to spend one day cleaning the hospital toilets." Additionally in a world where you can go to med school and not be buried under a 100k in debt, people would be encouraged to become specialized in what they are interested in or truely useful social functions. We would hopefully see many more people becoming surgeons and such forth, and wouldn't have to deal as much with professional shortages like we do now.

You never get to find out how they work, though. An Comms make broad, feel good generalizations trying to make capitalism and the state one in the same, and ignore all specifics that are difficult to explain like I pointed out.

You want to understand an comms? Pretend that life can be without hardship or fear or evil, and build a utopia off that premise, not off of anything realistic, just purely feelgood idealistic. Once you've achieved that precarious mental structure with contradictions as support beams and doublespeak as joists, only when your mind is so twisted around that you think voluntary exchange is slavery, only then will you understand an an comm. They're parrots, not thinkers. This is why our questions will never be answered and why we're just downvoted and ignored on /r/debateacommunist

Or those jobs you call boring and shitty would be made not shitty or boring. I especially like hauling shit(literally) to where it was dumped in the commune I lived at, and when we installed composting toilets and a humanure system I liked it even more.

one version of the communist ideal
In the fist paragraph only I discussed one hypothetical and probably impossible ideal form of communism. Compare the ideal form of capitalism many like to use in hypotheticals, in which there are no Third World factories, only independent farmers and inventors bringing their goods to market. If the ideal is unattainable, it can still be useful for discussing human behavior and ultimate goals.

It would be a mistake to reduce all communist thought to idealist, post-scarcity futurist fantasy. "Full technological unemployment" is not a precondition to communism--in fact, in classical Marxism a large industrial proletariat is assumed. I think communism is very much achievable with our current level of technology, and even with a reduction in the production of consumer goods. Please stay in the debate!

Work is inherent to living, is what I'm saying. Communism cannot change this fact.

There are different subjective levels of what constitutes a comfortable living. For some, this nears starvation, (I've personally encountered such individuals) for others, it's a gold plated mansion. I would say laziness is proportional is the amount of comfort you are willing to forgo due to avoid the required work necessary to achieve it.

Of course, in today's statist societies there are many people who achieve very comfortable livings while also being lazy (by using state violence and monopoly power). The confusion comes about when communists confuse this with capitalism and the true virtue of "work" that capitalists endorse.

The fact that people, even in today's society, are motivated to complete tasks for other reasons than monetary incentive speaks against this.

However, it brings up an interesting flip-side. Would people being "lazier" really be a bad thing? Yes, things are done extremely quickly today, but is it absolutely necessary to sacrifice so much of our life and time for it? Would we not all be better off being "lazier" (by which I mean enjoying leisure activities, hobbies, time with friends/family, reading, etc.)?

The fact that people, even in today's society, are motivated to complete tasks for other reasons than monetary incentive speaks against this.

I do not see how the fact that some people under some conditions are motivated non-monetary incentives leads to a conclusion that without monetary incentives, all people would be as or more productive.

Also, I do not find studies about frustrated and well fed primates compelling either.

Thanks! I saw that in an older thread and find it to be interesting but not conclusive evidence resolving the issue of motivation. For one the, the study focuses on an intelligent and technically sophisticated portion of the work force. Secondly, the conclusion of decoupling money and motivation that many try to draw from it ignores the first half of the study, where money is a great motivator for unsophisticated tasks.

At this point, many debaters invoke robot AI, replicators, and a workforce with a universally high mental capacity.

I would argue that while the unskilled section of the work force may not always be as large as it currently is, it will not disappear in the near to mid future. I am interested how a implementable model of communism would work in a realistic world with scarce resources and labor.

For one the, the study focuses on an intelligent and technically sophisticated portion of the work force.

Actually,the book (it's a great read) focuses a chapter on the theory working for any job, task, depending on the nature of the end goal. When the workers are invested in a nonprofit, a charity, as a volunteer or lesser pay(less than the same ability in a capitalist job), the theory does apply. Communism provides the same things.

Backwards bending means that at high wage rates, labor supply decreases. Intuitively, if I were to get a raise to 100k/hr, I probably wouldn't choose to work a full 40 hour week. I'd choose to "spend" more income on leisure time. It's not really relevant to the issue presented.

As for monetary motivation, I would say that for most of us, money isn't the primary motivation (at least for career choice), but it serves to tip the scales so supply equals demand.

No actually we could be just as productive if more people worked for less hours each, therefore affording more leisure time for all. There are incentives for capitalists only hiring so many people to work for them, after all, see Marx's idea of the reserve army of labour.

Ah I see what you mean. Everyone works so there's more overall production. In the US, the amount of leisure time freed up for everyone might be negligible since in moderate to good economic times the unemployed aren't too many and (no offense) are generally the least productive of the society.

Everyone also needs to work under a capitalist society, the difference is that not everyone has the opportunity to do so. And the only reason the unemployed would be the least productive in a society is because they are unemployed.

Well that's a chicken and the egg kind of argument. They are unemployed because businesses don't want to hire them. They don't want to hire them because they see them as being les skilled and less productive than other possible employees.

Exactly why I said that they are perceived as less productive, so as to not paint all unemployed people as unproductive. But I think you're ignoring reality a bit to assume that everyone who is unemployed is just productive as those with jobs.

Yes, but I think you are underestimating just how much the perception of them being less productive affects their chances of a job. And not only that, but other factors such as age, obediency, reliability, etc. which may have very little to do with productivity.

Even if it were true that the unemployed are less productive than the employed, there is still potential productivity there going to waste.

The leisure time freed up would be from less unnecessary production. Capitalists produce things, then manipulate us to buy them through commercialism, heightening sexuality, etc. just for their own selfish profit, not to improve the society or the other individuals.

Depends on what you mean by "leisure activities" and how one views one's labor. The same sustenance farmer would probably not take much leisure in the activities wage workers (like many of us are) take pleasure in. There is not some overarching idea of what "leisure" MUST mean. It's up to each individual.

You have zero concept of macro-economics. If people were on average 1% lazier than they are today, society likely wouldn't have created that computer you're typing on. Or at the least, they would be too expensive for you to afford.

Macro-economics is the study of how even small changes in human behavior can effect an entire economy. This reasoning leads to the idea that if humans were just slightly less self-interested, or slightly less motivated by monetary return or social distinction, entire segments of the economy would disappear, due to lack of growth.

I guess you could say it's sort of like the economic butterfly effect, except that instead of one butterfly, any slight change in all of human behavior would have great effects.

In the same manner, if people as a whole were 1% less lazy, we could possibly have flying cars and space travel by now. Of course this is all just speculative conjecture but it demonstrates the idea.

Communists grasp very little of this concept, since they don't understand how a slight change in fundamental economic incentives would have disastrous effects (as clearly shown by historical examples of communism).

By that logic capitalism itself is self destroying in that it's natural inclination is to lower wages for the majority of those working within it. It is constantly destroying compensatory incentives through elimination of benefits, wages or simply outsourcing to cheaper labor zones.

It also implies that all growth based within the economic and social framework of capitalism (inovation based on renumeration rather then genuine social, scientific or artistic interest) is in fact beneficial to humanity. The vast majority of humanity will never use, afford or perhaps even need the fruits of capitalist inovation.

Given that people are frequently driven into taking multiple jobs and work long work days/weeks, the prevalence of unemployment and the extordinary amount of socially useless production (do we really need factories to produce McDonald toys that most people will throw away), one could say that we could encourage laziness and still maintain the same level of productivity for actually useful production that we currently have.

Quite frankly there are entire of segments of the economy that should and deserve to disappear.

Capitalist growth as driven by profit is entirely self serving. Growth is relative, when the economy grows does it actually represent the furtherment of humanity, or is it simply overproduction. Given we actually produce something like 50 percent more food then we actually need, growth in the agricultural sector is superflous, only justified by the profits it can accrue. It is even more illogical given that despite the overproduction of food millions starve every day. We overproduce and in the current system we can't even efficiently use what we do produce.

Lastly, just so you know, there is enough division among communists about whether the historical examples of communism actually reflect their beliefs and the forms of society that communists propose that I would step gingerly around using it as a catch all example of the failures of communist ideology.

By that logic capitalism itself is self destroying in that it's natural inclination is to lower wages for the majority of those working within it. It is constantly destroying compensatory incentives through elimination of benefits, wages or simply outsourcing to cheaper labor zones.

Typical communist misunderstanding of the balance between employee and employer power. Because of mutually beneficial interaction, the trend is for both parties to benefit. Just to be clear, we are talking about capitalism, and not the psuedo-capitalism/corporatism of today.

It also implies that all growth based within the economic and social framework of capitalism (inovation based on renumeration rather then genuine social, scientific or artistic interest) is in fact beneficial to humanity. The vast majority of humanity will never use, afford or perhaps even need the fruits of capitalist inovation.

What? I don't understand this. Are you saying we don't use computers, cellular phones, automobiles, etc? There isn't a better example of completely misallocated and misused production than the centrally planned societies of communism.

Given that people are frequently driven into taking multiple jobs and work long work days/weeks, the prevalence of unemployment and the extordinary amount of socially useless production (do we really need factories to produce McDonald toys that most people will throw away)

You see here is a perfect example of capitalism being so efficient that it has the ability to produce toys for virtually nothing at the demand of the market. In fact this directly contradicts the idea that "If people did not want toys, they would not be produced, just because you don't care about them doesn't mean no one does.

one could say that we could encourage laziness and still maintain the same level of productivity for actually useful production that we currently have.

Just because you think you are intellectual enough to refuse toys to those who want them doesn't mean you are.

amount of socially useless production

This kind of typical conflated communist mumbo-jumbo makes me cringe. By "socially useless production" you mean things that you are able to deny because you are intellectually superior and enlightened enough to determine. I suppose you would be included in the communist ruling class which makes these decisions through some central planning committee?

There is no purer democracy than the unfathomable amount of choices of 6 billion individuals everyday. People democratically chose to buy those toys, you have no right to deny that.

Quite frankly there are entire of segments of the economy that should and deserve to disappear.

Oh great, more central planning. Go ahead, tell me, I bet you can do a much better job than Kim Jong Sun.

Capitalist growth as driven by profit is entirely self serving.

That's the idea.

Growth is relative, when the economy grows does it actually represent the furtherment of humanity, or is it simply overproduction. Given we actually produce something like 50 percent more food then we actually need, growth in the agricultural sector is superflous, only justified by the profits it can accrue.

Said the central planner. No system more efficiently allocates and responds better to market signals than capitalism. THIS is obvious. How you could possibly think you could deny 100's of case studies and disprove the empirical evidence that central planned economies don't work, is beyond me.

Lastly, just so you know, there is enough division among communists about whether the historical examples of communism actually reflect their beliefs and the forms of society that communists propose that I would step gingerly around using it as a catch all example of the failures of communist ideology.

Nah, it's all just various denials. There are so many historical examples that show the failures of each and everyone of the core tenets of communism, that no one can claim ignorance.

Central planning, labor theory of value, lack of market signals, misallocated resources, collectivism, suppresion of free-will, power concentration, tendency towards authoritarianism, necessary ruling class, tragedy of the commons, etc, etc, etc. It doesn't matter what communist subculture you subscribe to, they all rely on at least some of these failure prone core tenets.

Aside from the mutualists, who seem to be okay with me living in my own voluntary community with its own interpretation of property rights, the majority of the communists are unfortunately doomed, IMO.

You seem more interested in proving capitalism is awesome by virtue that the so called communist states were awful. That and making sarcastic quips of, "So says the CENTRAL PLANNING COMMIE." Try being less of an asshole and make more actual arguments.

Oh and saying "capitalism is the most efficient ISN'T IT OBVIOUS!"

Also it seems rather questionable if you are allowed say our current system is corporatism and not true capitalism, but I am not allowed to say the USSR and it's various political exports in North Korea, China, Cuba etc are grotesque caricatures of genuine socialist theory? Why is it every libertarian I meet (I don't if you are a libertarian tho) seems to always this isn't real capitalism but insist that I have to accept the tradtion of people like Stalin and Mao?

The benefits of capitalism you point out are largely confined to the US and Europe, yes people own cars and computers in those countries. Much of the world however has been kept too immiserated to afford their own personal ownership of said items. The parts of the world where they produce our shiney toys.

Even with the ease of access to commericial goods how much of that can you say is a benefit in the face of it becoming increasingly hard to acquire necessities. The difficulty in home ownership, the lack of affordable health care, food insecurity, all compounded by unemployment and stagnating or falling incomes. Capitalism is great at creating and cheapening iPads, but it seems to have difficulties in getting people into homes that have been standing empty on the market for 5 years.

You can call it mumbo jumbo if you think your quips can deflect any actual critical look at ideas. Yes McDonalds toys are a waste of resources and labor. If there is a market demand it doens't necessarily mean there was some primeval human demand for it that we didn't know about and just couldn't be met until capitalism gave us the means. Demand can be articifically created even demand for food. For instance the meat industry as it is currently was originally created, or rather the industry was massively expanded into what it is, as a way to sell off excess grain production after WWII. The meat industry simply created a massive campaign to encourage increased meat consumption as part of the diet, create a more meat oriented culture, simply to make sure the meat and agricultural businesses could stay profitable. A rational system would say, "if overproduction of grain is creating loses then produce less grain." If we can artificially create a demand for such a basic commodity needed for life, then I think we can artificially create a demand for easily breakable plastic toys.

And yes I am only a communist because I want a cushy job in a politburo. The sufferings of the workers and peasants means nothing to me because I have soviet gauranteed dental.

Also it seems rather questionable if you are allowed say our current system is corporatism and not true capitalism, but I am not allowed to say the USSR and it's various political exports in North Korea, China, Cuba etc are grotesque caricatures of genuine socialist theory? Why is it every libertarian I meet (I don't if you are a libertarian tho) seems to always this isn't real capitalism but insist that I have to accept the tradtion of people like Stalin and Mao?

It's a matter of specifics. It's quite easy to specify the aspects of corporatism which prevent it from being equated with free market capitalism, to free-market capitalists the distinction couldn't be any clearer. Institutionalized aggression and involuntary interactions DO NOT exist in a free market. As for the historical examples of communism which various communists deny, they each exhibit at least one or more of the core tenets of communism which can and have been empirically proven to cause harm and/or failure.

You can deny history if you wish, but when you advocate a system with core philosophies which have failed, it will be pointed out.

The benefits of capitalism you point out are largely confined to the US and Europe, yes people own cars and computers in those countries. Much of the world however has been kept too immiserated to afford their own personal ownership of said items. The parts of the world where they produce our shiney toys.

Are they? Although much of the eastern world has been held back under the burden of tyrannical governments and communism, the few regions that have opened up to markets and capitalism in the last several decades are quickly creating wealth and will quickly pass up the western world.

Even with the ease of access to commericial goods how much of that can you say is a benefit in the face of it becoming increasingly hard to acquire necessities. The difficulty in home ownership, the lack of affordable health care, food insecurity, all compounded by unemployment and stagnating or falling incomes. Capitalism is great at creating and cheapening iPads, but it seems to have difficulties in getting people into homes that have been standing empty on the market for 5 years.

You just listed a bunch of negative things, I see no correlation to capitalism anywhere in here, I could have easily just listed all these and added, "caused by statism".

If there is a market demand it doesn't necessarily mean there was some primeval human demand for it that we didn't know about and just couldn't be met until capitalism gave us the means.

That's exactly what it means. Although I don't know what "primeval" human demand is nor do I care.

Demand can be articifically created even demand for food. For instance the meat industry as it is currently was originally created, or rather the industry was massively expanded into what it is, as a way to sell off excess grain production after WWII. The meat industry simply created a massive campaign to encourage increased meat consumption as part of the diet, create a more meat oriented culture, simply to make sure the meat and agricultural businesses could stay profitable.

Artificially created...through the force of the state, I agree. Voluntary interactions by definition cannot be artificial, if you think they are, that is merely you thinking you are somehow smarter or more enlightened.

A rational system would say, "if overproduction of grain is creating loses then produce less grain." If we can artificially create a demand for such a basic commodity needed for life, then I think we can artificially create a demand for easily breakable plastic toys.

You keep using these words, like 'rational system'. This collectivism has no meaning to me. Rational is whatever billions of free rational individuals decide it is.

And yes I am only a communist because I want a cushy job in a politburo. The sufferings of the workers and peasants means nothing to me because I have soviet gauranteed dental.

I hope you don't think this is the straw man I was attempting to create. But your insistence that you somehow know better than billions of individuals and simply having the power to control these "wasteful" or "irrational" market decisions would make the world better, reeks of centrally planned authoritarianism. The fact that you are blind to this is what is scary.

Another conclusion would be that so many resources would not be wasted on maintaining the classes that there would be much more time and resources to create things people truly need and desire.

This is merely conjecture. You have no empirical evidence that communism can achieve anything remotely similar to this. Besides, if you think you can better allocate time and resources to "create things people truly need and desire", freed-market capitalism is the only system that allows you to truly attempt this. Free from using aggressive force of course.

Is that what a person's humanity means to you? Their production? Well, not in communism, it isn't. Why should people's abilities, something they have little control over that defines whether one gets his/her needs met or not? Whether one suffers, while another lavishes?

There is no guarantees that communism would be able to provide for everyone.

There are plenty of resources to provide for everyone. In the world. It is the distribution of resources in our world, that allows for "scarcity". Considering how much unproductive work, work going to wasteful ends, resources being hoarded by a few, there are in our world, no one thinks that communists would ever have to work as much as any one does now.

Honestly, I find wage labor makes people lazy. You'll notice most people have big plans for things they'd like to accomplish but have to use the vast majority of their energy at work, getting to work, and recovering from work.

I spend a lot of time planning projects, but when I want to get down to business and actually accomplish something on them I often have to take a few days off work to actually have the energy and motivation to do it.

Maybe? They will probably be just as "lazy" as they were before capitalism, and before they had to work long enough and hard enough to feed and house and entertain the entire capitalist class and their families.

When one lives in a capitalist society it is hard to imagine any good motivation besides monetary rewards. To prevent laziness in communism mind sets would have to be changed. First of all the public would have to be taught about the idea that "we all do better when we all do better". A sense of duty to the community would also have to be established. And society would have to be shown that things like job satisfaction are good motivations too. How these changes are made I unfortunately only have hypothesi on and not definitive answeres for.

I wouldn't say it requires any change in human nature because so much of our social make up is learned.Hhowever, I do think that what KansasStater is talking about requires massive and mandatory education, that conformity to the ideal collectivist, is your ultimate goal. That I do not agree with. People should be able to freely exchange with each other, in what ever way those individuals involved deem acceptable. How they are educated and what their education consists of should be no different.

Although it likely depends on your current situation. If you are currently lazy, you likely have very little wealth (not a financial term) even in this psuedo-capitalist economy. Advocating a society in which violence is used to redistribute the wealth of the unlazy equally to everyone, even the lazy, would obviously be beneficial to you. Although, within a short period, the lack of incentive brought up by the OP would lower the overall amount of wealth in your society as people become overall less willing to work for their lazy counterparts (since humans are inherently self-interested as discussed in a lower conversation).

So in the beginning, although you might gain a short boost in wealth, in the end, your absolute wealth is almost sure to be lower, as is evident in any previous example of communist societies in history. But for those short-sighted who cannot see more than two layers deep, the relative difference in wealth would be all you care about (wealth equality), even though people could lack the basic things we consider for granted today, as long as everyone lacks these things, such a society would be acceptable in said communist's eyes.

Although it is incredibly easy to see that even small pockets of psuedo-capitalism increase absolute wealth quickly and efficiently, communists are almost willfully blind to such a fact.

There are many other reasons besides laziness, to explain income inequality.

I would agree, society is inherently anti-egalitarian, for example there are varying levels of intelligence, attractiveness and other genetic factors. Also, different environments and parenting techniques can result in different behavioral development and resulting skill sets. None of these inherently human aspects depend on capitalism or communism. So one can see, income inequality doesn't depend solely on laziness (in fact I would think very little of it relies upon laziness, but it is still a factor), but is still independent of economic/social system.

Self-interest may be an unfortunate part of human nature but I do not feel like it is the strongest motivation. The desire to improve the lives of your children for example is stronger.

It is also true of human nature to learn from society, if someone grew up in a society where hard work was expected, those born into that society would easily grow into that culture. Self-interest is perceived to be so strong in capitalist nations because that is what the culture expects.

What you're describing is merely cultural variances in the importance of work as a virtue, not self-interest. Self-interest is relatively consistent across all cultures, due to evolution. Even the most communistic societies in history still held self-interested individuals.

For example, the belief that donating all of your money to the local communist government is going to benefit you in the long run is still self-interest (however misplaced). i.e. misinformation or varied interpretation does not effect self-interest.

Well we've already conformed to the ideal collective to make capitalism work. Capitalism mostly asserted itself through violence though, which I guess you could say is comparably worse than forced education.

Correct me if I are wrong but I get the impression that you are more of an anarcho communist (which is fine, I'm not going to argue that now). I however feel that a state would do a better job of resource distribution and with that education needs to be mandatory in order to have a public educated enough to make electoral decisions.

Allowing people to be educated how they want, I feel, only leads to bigotry and willful ignorance passed down through families.

A socialist economy is defined as the workers owning the means of production and operating them (direct)democratically. In that process everyone needs to learn the view of all the other workers and debate them with empathy and respect, in order to attain agreement. The common workers would be a majority, those with knowledge would, at first, be in the minority, the latter must learn to cooperate with the rest for best results. As everyone sees the result, no oppression, etc., I would hope the group would tend towards best for all.

I would agree with you that the best education is direct experience, though we disagree on the probable outcomes. More broadly, I think state-mandated "schooling" hardly encompasses 'education'.

But I'm not sure that addresses OP's comment, that mandatory education is desirable. Your response indicates voluntary education, and I take no issue with that.

And not to get off subject, but my limited understanding of how socialist systems are intended to work involves consensus, which (as pointed out to me by another socialist redditor) is not direct democracy.

Your ignorance is dumbfounding. Please don't come here just to troll, because you clearly aren't contributing anything. Your idea is not only completely wrong, but if it was true, it would be irrelevant. Humans are, at our very core, a communal species. We evolved to rely on eachother for survival in groups. To say that humanity evolved with an "every person for him/herself" mentality is completely ignorant of basic anthropology.

Even if it was true in any regard, it would be irrelevant. Humanity has changed social systems an enormous number of times. There have been an enormous number of transitions and different societies existing simultaneously. Stateless "proto-communist" societies existed and thrived in Africa until a few hundred years ago.

On top of that, I would also argue that if any of this vacuous "self-interested" rhetoric was true, it would still promote communism. Communism would increase the living standards and happiness for the vast majority of the world's population.

Humans are self-conscious beings and, as a result, we are capable of challenging and overcoming our instincts. To say that humanity is self-interested at heart and that there is nothing that can stop that is woefully inaccurate and cynical at best.

Good point. Presuming a vast chunk (majority?) of the world population lives under poverty, it should be in their interest to promote and adopt communism, which would upgrade and improve their living standards; which in turn, renders this self-interest rhetoric, so widely used as an argument against communism, useless.

The question is stated too broadly. Some people I'm sure would lose productivity initially. Others who currently produce nothing if put to work at a living wage obviously would drastically increase. On balance, it's difficult to say in the transition or long term as it's a big question of efficient utilization of labor and material.

Just from my understanding of human behavior, the dividing line comes in to play primarily when the difference between a worker and a slacker or freeloader doesn't exist. There appears to be a fundamental judgement this violates fairness that ripples through a society. Of course this happens now in a capitalist world, union or not, but by its nature any system that aims for universal equality regardless of effort would seem to guarantee prevalence of inequity of reward judged against merit.

Anecdotal evidence for this has come from some of my exposure to hippy commune cultures of the past. The contributor vs freeloader dynamic tended to play itself out and cause debilitation of some groups well being. Of course there were other problems, such as 'free love' leading to jealousy and interpersonal problems too. I know I'd personally have a problem and lose motivation were my own share of rewards equal to another I felt was slacking or freeloading. In time, it seems a fundamentally unsustainable situation.

This is among the reasons I'm not an advocate of classless societies given the level of diversity in our population. I think we need some level of meritocracy to broadly fit a prevalent perception of fairness to sustain motivation and social harmony. Though consistent with my flair, I think there need to be limits to inequity as I see that too as fundamentally unfair and unhealthy.

I don't think that classlessness and some degree of meritocracy are mutually exclusive. If everyone has equal access to the means of production, but hard workers are elected to positions of power and given first pick of material goods, is that class? I don't think someone who makes double or even quadruple my wage is necessarily in a different class, if there is sufficient fluidity and I could reach that level of reward at any time by working like they do.

You hint at the problem or question people will perhaps have to grapple with if a revoltion occurs. We are not talking simply changing the schedule of bus lines, we are talking a fundamental reorgnization of society and the ideological butresses that it creates or form around it. This is a momumental task and it will not be a cut and dry example with all notions of liberation vidicated the moment the red flags start flying high. When you are fundamentally changing the relations of workers to production and distribution, there is a steep learning curve. Some people will be motivated by genuine enthusiasm now that they have real stakes in their own labors, no longer alienated, possibly even for thing like scrubbing toilets. Some people will decide not to work if they no longer feel compelled by the need for a wage to survive.

It's not simply changing the economy it is changing the way people think and how they relate to society, themselves and other people.

The problem with the hippy commune example is such efforts at communal living is still the act of trying to plant communal plants in capitalist concrete. There is no possible way to insulate yourself from the effects of the market, because the market is constantly expanding into all untouched places of the planet. You also can't expect to create ideal situations when you yourself have spent a life time under the ideological sway of the system you are trying to escape, no matter how much of a "free thinker" you invision yourself as. So clearly, for example, free love and it's advocation will run into a wall when people still subconciously view relations within the framework of monogamy, an institution which has had a thousand years to develop.

This is the fundamental problem we have to grapple with is adovcating a better world, while grappeling with ideology that has had a thousand years to entrench itself, but by no means is "natural" to the human psyche. Frankly if we fundamentally change society in regards to these questions it will take several generations before the "muck of ages" as Marx called it is washed away by virtue of unuse and the lack of a system that needs its propagation.

Your friend would be amazed what people can do when they feel it's for their community instead of making money for someone else.

On the subject of laziness. Humans are lazy in the sense we're looking to gain as much as we can with as little effort as possible.
The communist society would also mean A LOT less work since work would be:

A. divided among capable people. If it takes 8h for one person to pick food for 10 people. Why have a system where only one person would be employed and 9 people unemployed when you can have 10 people pick enough food for all in .8h and have the rest day off to create or do whatever they want?

B. based on needs and R&D, not based on fulfilling a fabricated need as in this current consumerism. In the above example the current system's solution to employ people would be to create a demand for food representing the 9 extra people.
The reason for that solution is that a capitalist does not gain profit from solution in example A only in solution B. The Capitalist solution is wasteful and counterlogical to the human free spirit.

A. divided among capable people. If it takes 8h for one person to pick food for 10 people. Why have a system where only one person would be employed and 9 people unemployed when you can have 10 people pick enough food for all in .8h and have the rest day off to create or do whatever they want?

A modern, advanced economy needs a high degree of specialization. Maybe we can all farm, but can we all write computer software? Someone with experience is much more likely to outperform and achieve higher efficiency.
If efficiency is not a priority, the question would be how much labour are you willing to waste and could an economy accommodate this? Would there be a negative psychological effect of a loss of efficiency on the workforce?
For instance, would a brilliant scientist be forced to do an hour of inefficient work every day?

Humans like efficiency so it is. We most likely didn't invent the wheel to make money, we did it out of "laziness" - a sense of efficiency maximizing between effort and reward, to make it easier for ourselves.

There's a lot of progress today that's not being made because of the lack of profit in it.

There's a lot of things being discovered and invented on people's spare time because they love what they do.

would a brilliant scientist be forced to do an hour of inefficient work every day?

Humans like efficiency so it is. We most likely didn't invent the wheel to make money, we did it out of "laziness" - a sense of efficiency maximizing between effort and reward, to make it easier for ourselves. There's a lot of progress today that's not being made because of the lack of profit in it. There's a lot of things being discovered and invented on people's spare time because they love what they do.

The market is an organic, democratic, and decentralized entity that relays supply and demand signals very quickly. It pulls technological advances, in both consumer goods and manifacturing processes, along with it. It does not require a State to function effectively, and allows for any form of economic organization, as long as voluntary exchange is respected among those in the community. Would your vision for society advance with your model? And do you have to force people to abide by the rule of others, either one or many.

Of course. A lot of progress is made today in people's spare time because they love their field of expertise. Also a lot of progress is NOT being made because there's no or less profitable aspect in it even though it would benefit all humanity.

And do you have to force people to abide by the rule of others, either one or many.

There are consequences in every system of social organization. If they violate my property rights then I will retaliate with proportionate force. The fact is, that if they want to live with 10 others communally I would not interfere with them, and I would respect their communal claim to their property. However, if I wanted to have PRIVATE property in a communal society I would be aggressed against.

I don't know about your interests, but i could imagine a fictional individual who's love in life is playing the kazoo. I think society may get more utility from this individual as a miserable line cook.

That's an interesting question. Most communists would say that having to do undignified work for the benefit of others in order to receive basic necessities (food, healthcare, rent, education...) is a form of coercion.

As animals, we have basic biological needs and physiological fears that can be exploited to elicit a level of work from a person that their dignity would not allow under different circumstances.

When a bull takes the plow is he less "lazy" when he is whipped? The animal's natural intuitions are against this types of work.

Similarly, I will argue that humans will do more work when they are threatened with hunger, insecurity and alienation. We can be made to resort to vocations that are unhealthy or even downright dangerous in order to procure these things for ourselves. There is a reason why almost all prostitutes and coal miners are from low income backgrounds.

The original Plymouth settlement that failed due to being run on socialist principles. In particular these quotes from the governors:

Common property's disincentives produced terrible results in both colonies. Shirking was so severe at Jamestown that Thomas Dale noted that much of the survivors' time was devoted to playing rather than working, despite the threat of starvation. Plymouth Governor William Bradford noted that "this community of property was found to breed much … discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort," even despite the use of whipping to limit shirking, with results described as "injustice" and "a kind of slavery."

After they moved to private property:

In Plymouth, Governor Bradford observed that since

their victuals were spent … they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop … that they might not still thus languish in misery … the Governor gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular … And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.
Bradford also described the consequences:

This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use … and gave far better content.

Wow, that article of Plymouth and Jamestown settlement was just absolutely terrible. Just terrible. Although this isn't surprising since most of the history at the LvMI is horseshit. The reason people died at Jamestown had nothing to do with occupancy and use or communism in general. NOTHING. There are multiple reasons people died at Jamestown. For starters, when the settlers arrived, they were looking out for their own self-interest by searching for gold and not preparing. Another reason was that their trading partners, the Native Americans, sort of fell through. There was also droughts which ended crops and then they had extremely cold winter. They were also expecting supplies from overseas which never arrived. Plus, these are people starting from scratch. They didn't land in Jamestown surrounded by villages and trading partners. Furthermore, they didn't have access to clean water which is sort of a problem. Pretty much the same thing happen at Plymouth except they had a bunch of diseases and were fighting off Native Americans.

Either way, this is just another assertion of "tragedy of the commons" which has been dealt with extensively by people such as Ostrom who gives a number of empirical examples where communities can pool and managed resources better than both states and markets.

Edit: Just came across this article debunking more of this fake history.

Edit 2: I forgot about your Index on Economic Freedom. I'll just skip the part where many of the top ranking countries where also colonizers. I'll also skip the part where we don't live in a world of statism/non-statism but have systems within statism and non-statism which is more important. Instead, I'll just say that in a anarcho-communist society, you would have complete economic freedom since power doesn't come from the top down, but the bottom up. There would be a number of autonomous units coordinating information, plans, and cooperating together. Unless you see why freely associated communities can't do this, your argument falls flat.

If the town is starving, then people will work to save themselves. If the town is not starving, they will not. However, in modern society, people have access to computers and other technology, which must be payed for in some way. Producing more goods gives the workers the benefit of being able to obtain luxury goods.

What is k? In my homecountry (germany) we have an average property of 16000€. That's a good joke, because the lowest 15-20% of population have more private debt than they will ever be able to pay. In addition to that, all citizens share the debts of society (>2.000.000.000.000€ in total ~~ 25000€ per head). Every citizen owes 25000€ for being German, but the 16000, he ownes just theoretically. How high are per-head indebtness and average wealth in the USA? Did someone ever ask, when all this is to pay back? What if the chinese want their money back? It's gonna be funny.

Equal pay means people who like the work gravitate towards it, assuming a perfect set of circumstances otherwise.

Ex., I work in a factory as a temp. I pretty much suck at it and it's hard as hell on my body. But the money is $2 an hour more than anything else I could do and be much better at at the moment. (Need a job while I search for a career.) If it was the same money, I would have passed on that job and let it go to someone who would be good at it and liked that sort of work. It's actually a social benefit. As long as the equal pay is livable, we have the right people doing the right work for the right reasons. Yes, a small subset of society would sit on their butts at home if they didn't have to work, but a very small subset. Negligible, even.

I was out of work for a year and went out of my mind. Work is inconvenient, but not being productive does bad things to my head and I know it. I'd like to think I'm representative of most people, in that regard.

My google front page research shows only theories. The thing I've read that substantiates this is not in the manner implied. The Khmer Rouges for of agrarian communism (I know it's not pure communism I'm merely using what Pol Pot described it as) people were so starved they could not function at a normal capacity.

People were so starved becasue they were harvesting the product and that product was being shipped out to sell in China in exchange for weapons. Had it been a communist production method - that harvesting would have stayed primiarily in the state and spread around to ensure its use was beneficial to all - not being used for monetary value to trade for militarization. We call Pol Pots regime communism because he called it communism - we must examine its effects and the manner in which it was created. Leading us to the conclusion that what he did was not communism - almost in any sense of the word.

Not entirely. Always remember the quote from Marx "from each according to their means, and to each according to their needs."

Obviously a person who is handicapped will be receiving the same if not more while hardly being able to work. Not everything is so black and white, and there still isn't any set guidelines as to how a anarchist/communist society will be. It will be up to the people to decide that, when it happens. Till then it's all speculations.

Also...As a response to your buddies input that communism makes people lazier, no there are no studies that prove that, that I am aware of. And secondly, capitalism and government has only existed recently in the brief history of mankind...By your friends remake, then by all means, mankind never progressed since tribal communities and hunter gatherer communities were a form of communism and they managed to get by an not pollute the world. So I guess with that logic, all tribes were lazy and need competition through capitalism....lol